dadaism - The word comes from Dali-istic painting, where it
designates
drawings in which seemingly symbolic things are scattered about without
there actually being any meaning intended in the pictures. If it can be
used of literature, it applies to alien-sounding double-talk like this:
Gram spramphis tham stampistan gram hendis stan tha gramdorcax importistan
(Kornbluth), and poetry like this:

Bayar, the iddy lamp comes plug-plug

See the wrong side upway man avar

So mags the dulcet simper of a rimy rug

And dents the skin smooth softness of the jar.

(RoyS & JohnLeC)

The resemblance to metaphysical poetry is apparent.

daffy poetics - (Kuslan) - Jingles which state something simply
true or obviously untrue, and outrage and amuse by the unpoeticness of the
sense and the openness with which they strain for rime. Take fr example
this little dillie from Beling's fanzine Fan-Atic, by Archer cusp (whoever
he is):

Dawnish - (Wollheim) - A universal language, like Esperanto, but
universal in that no one understands its (a sly slash at Ackerman's advocacy,
from the longago days when Wollheim strongly disliked him). In 1943 some
samples of it were presented to the FAPA, and the Brain Trust and others
ate it up. A complete exposition of the grammar and vocabulary (which is
constantly building) are yet to forthcome. The following example of Dawnish
means "The Fox and the Grapes": "Val Pauznik arz val
Sobashlu".

deadline - Theoretical time after which materials for a fanzine
or a mailing cannot be accepted. Deadlines mean little with fanzines, which
almost invariably come out later than originally scheduled, anyway. In the
FAPA a long, and on the whole successful, fite has been waged to get the
mailings out on the dates specified.

decadence - The condition of society and especially of the arts
in a period which follows the high point of a culture and precedes its complete
breakup. Rome was in such a state for centuries, and according to Spengler's
thesis in The Decline of the West, the entire Occidental world shows the
characteristic features; and his foresite has been borne out by later events.
Decadence is strongest of course in the cities, particularly , in the US,
in the Eastern cities and in Hollywood. The Futurians of New York are fandom's
number one exhibit. They delite in decadence, however, regarding it as a
sign that a new order is on the way to replace the old. Another alternative
to a gloomy view is de Camp's belief that modern technology has made it
virtually impossible for the world every again to slip all the way into
barbarism.

A decadent period may still produce very worth while literature, a sort
of silver age following the golden age, but it is more likely to go to extremes
of technique. In poetry our decadence has been marked by vers libre and
something we mite call dadaism, In humor double-inversion and the New Yorker
sort of detached amusement at everything are predominant. Fotografy having
replaced painting in large parts of its old field, a new justification is
sought in interpretations of abstractions. In music there is a striving
for dissonances, unusual rhythms, and effects. Emotional content has branched
into two trends, which also apply to the other arts: (1) cold, technical,
and abstract, which most people find insipid; (2) sharp, pungent, and seeking
for higher emotional feeling.

In all fields there's a striving after something which may provide the
basis for a new and vigorous art to arise. Eroticism is strong. Social customs
in our decadence come under the headings of thrill-seeking and Bohemianism.

den - Long before Science Fiction House or clubrooms were thot
of, individual fen had their own bits of territory dedicated to fandom.
The walls are covered with Vargas and originals from auctions. Hearthstone
around which the furniture is polarized is the tripewriter. Files of the
pros going back to the `20s and cases of books and folders of fanzines pretty
well fill the room, but in addition to these are the correspondence files,
"awaiting answers" box, "unread" box of pros and maybe
hams; and the tripewriter [sic] and duplicator must be put somewhere. Add
such optional miscellanea as scrapbooks, foto albums, camera and developing
equipment, and radio-recordplayer and records, and then consider that the
fan has to keep his wardrobe somewhere and sleep in the room too. The most
amazing den this writer has ever seen was Lester del Rey's in Washington,
where you would actually and literally dig down two decimeters in the litter
on the floor and come up with an empty milk bottle and half a loaf of bread.
Of course, not all fans can boast such Bohemianism; some keep quite genteel,
bourgeois-looking rooms.

Denver Science Fictioneers - A local which included Wiggins, Martin,
and Hunt. It soon reorganized as the Colorado Fantasy Society.

departments - Every magazine must have departments, and some,
both in the pro and in the fan field, have become overloaded with them.
They include the editorial, the contents page, a letter section, reviews
of pro and fanzines, and artistic and argumentative quotations, and various
columns and polls.

-- dept - Articles with titles such as "Two Letters from
Harry Schmarje Dept" are a peculiar form of humor, it being understood
that the item is not a department and will never recur.

DFF - The Dixie Fantasy Federation, an org to which fans in a
rather hazily-defined South could belong. It was launched by the Columbia
Camp in 1940, but soon became no more than its official organ, and never
had officers except the temporarily appointed ones. There were supposed
to be a conference at Columbia in 1941 which would get things going, but
this fell thru. A group trip by car to Chicon or Devention went unrealized,
but the Spiritrip was made to the 42 Boskone. A coat-of-arms was suggested,
but none adopted.

dictator - A title applied at various times to Tucker, Wollheim,
and Moskowitz, for their power in spwsstfm, Wollheimists, and New Fandom,
respectively.

digest - At times when there have been so many subscription fanzines
being published that only the most active fans can keep up with them all,
demand has arisen for a Reader's Digest of the fanmags. A few issues of
such digest have been published by various fans, and LeZ and others sometimes
ran reprints from their contemporaries, but no one appeared to handle the
job as a steady thing.

director - Title of the head of any SFL chapter and various other
organizations. With the SFL, he is supposed to be the member with the lowest
SFL number, membership certificates being numbered in order of issuance.

distimming - hat which characterizes the relation of the Gostak
to the doshes.

Dittoing - The Ditto company's direct process is related to hektoing,
but stands somewhat beyond it. Hekto carbons are used, laid face up under
the master sheet, so that drawing or typing on one side of the master gives
mirror writing on the other side in hekto pigment. The master sheet is put
face outward around a revolving drum similar to a mimeo's, and as each copy
sheet goes in, it is slitely moistened with something, and takes off just
enuf of the pigment on the master to make a good copy. Besides the
reproduction-range
up to 300 copies because no ink is wasted, there is the further advantage
that some copies may run off now and others next week.

Dixiecon - Originally, a proposed World Convention in Washington
for 1942. When the Devention decided in favor of Los Angeles,
"Dixiecon"
was used to refer to the proposed conference of the DFF at Columbia South
Carolina.

Dixie press - Publishing house which included the Columbia Camp
and Harry Warner round about 1941-42. Later used by Raym Washington.

dots - What J Ackerman and F Speer insist on not having after
their pseudo middle initials, what Britishers and other purists use entirely
too much of after contractions like "mags" and "dept",
and what Virgil Finlay's drawings are characterized by.

double-inverted humor - Ordinary humor consists of upsetting the
usual connections of things and using a new one, as in puns. A joke of this
type is the story told by Doc Lowndes, of a girl whom a giant was trying
to catch and eat. After eluding him a number of times, she somehow caused
him to fall unconscious, and sat down and gobbled him up. The essence of
humor is probably incongruity, but a necessary element of a joke is surprise.
After one has heard or read several thousand jokes in which the natural
order of things is upset, he comes to expect and anticipate it, so the only
way to surprise him is by resorting to the logical, the obvious. Such humor
may fail if the reader does not realize that it pretends to be a
single-inverted
story to start with, if he is not advanced enuf on the naive type to appreciate
the re-inversion. An extension of double-inverted humor is when the naive
type has been left so far behind that no one expects it to be used. Then
a bald pun or other simple witticism is the thing that will surprise and
delite the reader at the same time that he pretends to groan. The above
story from Lowndes may belong to this secondary stage.

drama - Numerous weird and a few s-f plays have been noted or
reviewed in fanzines. Dramas written by fans themselves have usually been
of the "closet drama" type, that is, intended for reading, not
for acting. The only play to be performed by fans was the Widner adaptation
of Chauvenet's "Legion of Legions" burlesque, at Boskon II. On
the sonodisc a few radio plays have been recorded by fans. Mention should
not also be made of Rothman's marionette show at the 38 Philcon.

dressed-up mundanes - Hack stories in which non-fantastic
elements could be substituted and the plot remain substantially
unchanged. (Copied from the ERRATADDENDUM)

drinking - More talked about than practiced (and practiced plenty)
is hard drinking among fans. Very few get disgracefully drunk, but the way
they talk you'd think they all did. Most of them have no objections to touring
the joints around midnite following a hard day at the convention. Your
correspondent
has no data on their preferences among the various liquors, but mention
should be made of the Super Science Fiction Special, even if not half a
dozen fans ever heard of it before. As usual, the Futurians are the outstanding
bad boys, but one of the reasons for the strife in LA in late `43 was the
intrusion of drinking on LASFS getogethers, transmission of the habit to
young members and Ackerman's objections to same.

il Duce of Flushing Flats - (Michel) - Nickname for James V Taurasi,
because his home was in swampy Flushing New York, and as one of the Triumvirs
he could be called a dictator.

dummy - a miniature of an issue of a fanzine which is being prepared,
indicating what material will be on each page. The proposed fanzine
Fantasia
is the classic example of the dummied but never published fan magazine;
by 1938 Hahn had made 22 dummies for the thing, and advertised it all over
creation, but it has never appeared, and according to Sw the subscription
money has never been returned.

The word is usually improperly used to mean the dummy copy, a typing-up
of all the material which will be in the issue, with marks at the end of
each@¢@¢ line to indicate how many spaces must be skipped, when
cutting the stencil, to@¢@ get even right-hand margins. [THIS IS VISUAL
look at the original text.] It's a lot of additional work, and many publishing@
fans refuse to do it.

DW3 - Don Wollheim, Dirk Wyle, and Dick Wilson, so called at the
time they occupied the Ivory tower.

dyktawo - (British:Ackerman) - Derived from initial of "Don't
you know there's a war on?", a customary British reply to kicks about
poor service, shortages, usw. The J began calling his outputs dyktawo pubs
when war conditions cut into his time and threatened their existence. After
being in the Army a while, he changed the name to Snafu Publications.